[NEohioPAL] a thought on publicity

Sun Jun 17 17:41:11 PDT 2012

Robert, Great points! Glad to see you mention this. 
Just to contribute a couple of thoughts.
While that type of publicity, as Chris mentioned, is not just a Cleveland issue. I will say, since moving to CLE four years ago, we've got to get away from being an import culture. It's so remarkably generic and uninspiring.
I'm interested in supporting and taking pride in organic, original, artists-- who are-- living, breathing, and creating.
We must highlight the artists we have HERE or are contributing HERE. We must believe that art and plays can be done wonderfully and uniquely HERE as well as THERE. If not, then why do the play?
Lines like "Bringing Hollywood to Cleveland" and the fawning over a coast-centric industry by dropping the name of some soap star who once played the lead in some play that is being produced, is for me, difficult to bear at times.
Aaron Calafato 

Actor/Writer/Storyteller
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Calafato/163472294920 

--- On Fri, 6/15/12, Christopher Fortunato <learnedhand at live.com> wrote:

From: Christopher Fortunato <learnedhand at live.com>
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL] a thought on publicity
To: "Robert Hawkes" <rhhawkes at gmail.com>, neohiopal at lists.neohiopal.org
Date: Friday, June 15, 2012, 10:28 PM

I agree.  This kind of name dropping started in the columns of Ben Brantley and such in the NYT years ago as a way to fill the paper.  Also, the New Yorker does its fair share of such comparison/contrasts.  However, the New Yorker does not have a deadline as short as a newspaper and can afford to do a "literary criticism" of sorts when critiquing a play.

For me, the best critic was Brooks Atkinson.  Of course, I think his deadline was far quicker than even Brantley's today.  He almost always started his reviews, "Last night at the Belasco Theatre..... got into the play, the leads, critiqued the production and then concluded.  He also did not devolve into snide and snippy remarks ala Brantley, the redoubtable Frank Rich (so responsible for closing plays) and even the PDs former critic, Tony Brown.

CR Fortunato

From: rhhawkes at gmail.com
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:59:50 -0400
To: neohiopal at lists.neohiopal.org
Subject: [NEohioPAL] a thought on publicity

I note with some curiosity a tendency to encourage attendance at a play by informing the potential audience that Famous Person X was (or even will be) in the play in New York/London/etc., or that Famous Person Y directed it ditto. The logic escapes me - because there is none: Famous Persons X and Y are not coming to Cleveland to do the show. Logic is not the point: this strategy is obviously aimed at pushing the audience's Name Recognition button in cases in which the title of the play may not do so. Fair enough, I guess, but it also encourages the whole willingness to lick the boots of celebrity and award-winning - a willingness we are healthier without, as a theatre community. 

We'll want to go to Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's As You Like It because Kevin Kline is in the Kenneth Branagh film of the play. We might even trek to Akron to see Ohio Shakespeare Festival's The Merchant of Venice because John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, and Anthony Sher have played Shylock elsewhere, as has Al Pacino, and he's a Movie Star! An Academy-Award-Winning Movie Star! Wait! So's Kevin Kline!

It's so silly. 

Just a thought. 

respectfully

Robert Hawkes
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